falconeyereviewsfandomcom-20200215-history
FalconEye Review 33: Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
Here it is guys, what some people consider to be the best 3D Sonic game ever made, here's my review of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for the Nintendo Gamecube. Is it as good as the first Sonic Adventure, is this really the best Sonic game ever made? Plot SA2's plot is split up into two stories, the hero and the dark. I'm going to combine them togethor to the best of my abilities. The game begins with Dr. Robotnik breaking into a top secret military base after reading in his grandfather's diary about an ultimate weapon being locked up there. Instead, he finds Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow is the Ultimate Lifeform, a being created by Eggman's grandfather, Gerald Robotnik almost 50 years ago. I'll get more into Shadow's backstory once I get around to reviewing Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow thanks Eggman for freeing him and says that he will grant him one wish if he brings him all the Chaos Emeralds. Shadow then goes and steals a Chaos Emerald from..... a city. I'm not exactly sure what it is, so I'll just call it....... San Francisco. The Guardian Units of the Nations, or GUN, mistakes Shadow for Sonic and arrests Sonic. A lot of people think of GUN as like the US military, but I tend to think more of S.H.I.E.L.D. from the Marvel Universe. Sonic escapes the military, only to be immediately captured again. Meanwhile, Knuckles the Echidna is confronted by a Bat Woman called Rouge who wants to steal the Master Emerald and add it to her jewel collection. While the two are arguing, Eggman steals the Master Emerald behind his back. Knuckles, thinking it would be better to destroy the Master Emerald rather than let Eggman take it, Falcon Punches the emerald, sending the pieces scattering, not unlike Adventure 1. I'm going to just assume Angel Island fell safely into the ocean with no casualties. Knuckles and Rouge then begin to search for the pieces of the Master Emerald. While all this is happening, Tails equips his new mech and travels to Prison Island with Amy Rose and frees Sonic. Tails and Amy make it off the island while Sonic confronts Shadow, who shows Sonic the power of Chaos Control, an ability that can teleport objects or slow down time. Eggman then tells Shadow via walkie-talkie that he needs to find Rouge and get off the island before it blows up. Sonic and Shadow, at a stailmate, rush off in opposite directions and escape the island (don't worry, it gets better by Shadow the Hedgehog). Eggman then travels to the Space Colony ARK, a space station where Gerald Robotnik created Shadow and built the imfamous Eclipse Cannon, a laser that when powered by all seven Chaos Emeralds can completely obliterate a planet (I'm guessing that's where Eggman got his idea in Unleashed). Eggman uses the six Chaos Emeralds he has to fire a warning shot at the moon, destroying half of it. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy all travel to the ARK to thwart Eggman's plans. It's about now that we find out Rouge is actually a GUN agent spying on Eggman, but that's really not important. Sonic confronts Eggman with a fake emerald that Tails created. Eggman traps Sonic in a pod, realizes that the emerald is fake, and launches Sonic in the pod, which blows up. Sonic, however, managed to use Chaos Control with the fake emerald and teleport back to the ARK. How Sonic managed to learn Chaos Control just by watching Shadow do it once or twice is beyond me. Anyway, Eggman then uses the final emerald to power up the Eclipse Cannon, when a video message from Gerald Robotnik appears. He sas that after his grandaughters death (oh, I forget to mention her. Maria was Shadow's only friend when he was fisrt created. He keeps having flashbacks of him promising her that he will do something for her, which for some reason he thinks is destroy all humanity.) Anyway, GUN felt like Gerald's experiments were to dangerous, so they travelled to ARK and killed almost everybody on board, including Maria. After this, Gerald went insane and programmed the ARK to crach into the earth when fully powered, conclusively destroying the planet. Knuckles uses the power of the restored Master Emerald to neuralize the Chaos Emeralds, thus stopping the collision course, when suddenly, BAM!!!!!! Random giant lizard. This is the Bio-Lizard, Gerald's proto-type of the Ultimate Lifeform. How he went from huge lizard to small black hedgehog is beyond me, but.... Shadow, after remembering that he actually promised Maria that he would halp mankind (gosh, that was easy), teams up with Sonic and fights the Bio-Lizard while Sonic and Knuckles get the Chaos Emeralds. The Bio-Lizard, however, merges with the ARK, becoming the Final Hazard, and causing the ARK to continue on it's collision course with Earth/Mobius. Sonic and Shadow then go super and fight the Final Hazard togethor, eventually defeating it and using Chaos Control to teleport the ARK back into orbit. Shadow, I guess being exausted,gasps out his last breath, "Maria, tell me... this is what you wanted...... Sayonara.... Shadow...." Shadow then falls to earth, everyone mourns his death, and that's where the game ends. However (spoiler alert) he actually survives, heals, and returns in Sonic Heroes (and no, Shadow is NOT a robot.) Gameplay Sonic Adventure 2's gameplay is, like I said, broken into two different stories, the light and the dark. There's three different gameplay styles. For Sonic and Shadow, it's the traditional speed platforming. Tails and Dr. Robotnik's stages are modeled after E-102 Gamma's stages from SA1. And then there's Knuckles and Rouge, who have treasure hunting stages. And I will say this, I despise all three gameplay styles. Let's start with the speed levels. I said I despise all three gameplay styles, that isn't exactly true. The speed stages, I do have fun with. But, I don't have near as much fun with these as I do in SA1. Sonic's levels are pretty good, but Shadow's are kinda dull. There also aren't too many Shadow stages to begin with. My favorite speed stages have to be either Metal Harbor or City Escape. Then there's the mech levels. To be honest, I find these dull overall. As far as Tails goes, WHY IS HE IN A MECH!!!!!!! IN THE CHAO GARDEN, HE CAN WALK AND FLY JUST LIKE IN ADVENTURE 1!!!!!!!!!!! HIS LEGS AREN'T BROKEN!!!!!!! GET OUT OF THAT MECH YOU MORON!!!!!! Eggman, I can understand being in a mech because he almost always is. However, all we get is the mech walker. I think SEGA had a missed oppurtunity here. Why can't we use just the egg mobile, or the Egg Hornet, or maybe even the Egg Viper? Don't get me wrong, I like Eggman's stages more than Tails', but I seriously think they should have played around with this more. But overall, I think I prefer Gamma's stages in SA1. And finally there's the treasure hunting levels.... and they are the WORST STAGES IN THE GAME!!!!!!!!!! It's not just that there's soooooo many of them, but some of them can be just plain cheap!!!!!!!! First of all, there are some changes to the radar system that I don't like. First off, I can't help but think that you have to be in a closer range for the alerter to go off. And also, the radar only goes off in a set order. You can be right next to a Master Emerald piece, and the radar won't go off because it wants you to find a different one first. You can still collect it if you see it, but...... And then there's Mad Space, Rouge's final level. And I am telling you right now, this level will break you. For one, the gravity platorming is extremely..... wait..... gravity platforming BEFORE Mario Galaxy???? What wizardry is this!!!!? Anyway, the gravity platforming is extremely finnicky, the hint system is either written backwards or it means the opposite. And speaking of the hint system, it's not that helpful. In SA1, a glowing ball flew in the general direction you should be heading. In this game, you have to already be familiar with the level design for it to be any help. For example, in one of Knuckles' stages, the hint is "Dig beneath the Pumpkin Triangle". How is that supposed to help me the first time I play!!!!!! And also, in one of Rouge's stages, Eggman is about to blow up Prison Island, and he tells Rouge that she has fifteen minutes to find three chaos emeralds, to which she responds "Five minutes should be plenty!" Mo, he said FIFTEEN MINUTES!!!!!!! UGH, I HATE WHEN GAMES DO THAT!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, scattered throughout this level are safes the you can, according to omachao, you "open by digging in the center". I tried this time and time again when I was right beside an emerald, and "I can't". Only after rage quitting after 15 tries at the level did I realize that you had to hit a switch to unlock the safes. Well.... THAT WOULD'VE BEEN A GOOD THING TO TELL ME OMACHAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To the person who manages to beat this level on his/her first try, congratulations you freak. Seriously, the original Metroid was easiar than this (no it wasn't, I hate that game). Overall, I hate the treasure hunting stages. They're too big, take too many tries, and are probably the main reason I give this game so much trouble. And then, there's the final boss. I know a lot of people like this boss. Me, I'm not a big fan of it, all because of the lazers. These things will get in your way constantly, making it next to impossible to hit the Bio-Lizard. I wouldn't say it's the worst final boss ever, but it's not the best either. And then there's the upgrades. Like SA1, characters can get upgrades that help them do certain things. Sonic can get the Light Speed Dash, which is actually a lot mosre useful in this game, the bounce bracelet which lets you bounce on the ground getting higher as you go, the Light Speed Attack.... which I never used, the flame ring, which allows Sonic to use the somersault/bounce attack to destroy metal crates, and the magic gloves, which..... turns enemies into action figures....... hmmm..... Tails' upgrades are the booster, returning from SA1, the Bazooka, which allows Tails to destroy steel containers with the Volcan Cannon, and the Laser Blaster, also returning from SA1. Knuckles gets the Shovel Claw from SA1, the Air Necklace which allows Knuckles to breath underwater, the Hammer Gloves, which allow Knuckles to destroy steel containes, and the Sunglasses, which allows him to see invisible objects. Oh, and by the time Knuckles gets everything, he looks like a rap star. The respective dark characters get generally the same upgrades with different names, with the exception of Eggman, you gets the protective armor. Controls I would just like to bring up a few controller changes that I feel are worth mentioning. Fist of all, the bounce attack, spindash, and light speed dash/attack are all on the same button. I don't get that. The gamecube controller has enough buttons, why can't we have the spindash/light speed attack on the B button, the Light Speed Dash on the X button, and the bounce attack on the Y button? Because of this, the spin dash is nowhere near as fluid as it was in SA1. The same goes for Knuckles and Rouge. You now have to press B in mid-air to dig. It was odd, but I didn't mind that too much. Good Aspects Well...... the only thing I can immediately think of is the fact that this game drew a lot of people into the Sonic Franchise. Bad Aspects All right, I've bashed this game pretty bad already, but I'm not done. The story for this game, like SA1, is not very good and just doesn't make sense in some spots. I'm not going to go in depth, but this story just has a few too many plot holes for my taste. I'm also not a fan of any of the voice acting except for Sonic and Knuckles. However, I can accept this considering that's it's only the second plot driven game and they're still trying to come up with a personality for most of the characters. Conclusion All right, I apologize to all of you fanatics who think this is the best Sonic game ever made. But to be honest, I only like about a third of this game, if even that, and as a sequel to my favorite 3D Sonic game, it kinda lets me down. I think SA1 is a lot better, and I know a lot of you are mad at me for comparing this to the original, so as a standalone game, I'll give it a 7/10. If it were just Sonic and Shadow levels, it would probably be an 8.5/10. Next Time, On the Dark Lord.... I tackle the remake of one of the hardest Nintendo games ever made, Metroid Zero Mission for the GBA.